smooth surfing Was: ...NAT users

[Bradley Miller]

At 02:35 PM 1/28/02 -0600, Duston, Hal wrote:
>JD Runyan [mailto:Jason.Runyan at nitckc.usda.gov] wrote:
>> In other words, you shouldn't pay to have access to the line, 
>> and then also be charged to actually use it.
>
>Look at your gas bill, or your electricity bill, or your 
>water bill.  They all have _exactly_ this type of charge.  
>At least mine do.

Exactly.  Which was my point . . . if you are expecting to use it for
something don't be shy to pay for what you are using.  I still think it's a
crock to charge for the number of PC's behind your connection (NAT wars on
Comcast).   I hvae 10+ PC's on my DSL, but some of them are just along for
the ride.  The one behind me only handles printer sharing via CUSP on
Linux.  Occasionally I'll pull a page from there but that's not typical.

JD and I are saying the same thing, but he's looking at it from the "bits
aren't consumed" perspective and I'm looking at it from the "overall
capacity" view.  Just because you might have a 3 inch water main to
everyone's house doesn't mean you can have the whole block open them all up
and take as much as they want . . . someone is going to need water on the
other side of town.  Ignoring the "water is irreplaceable until recycled"
argument, it's still a matter of capacity vs. potential.  I think Comcast
is just trying to keep everyone from maxing out their "pipe" and shutting
down the network.   It's the wrong approach IMHO.

-- Bradley Miller